Kenneth Irvine, Chair of Aquatic EcosystemsUNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands

Lament, Declare, Ignore –

Moving beyond aquatic conservationfor Lemmings

Twitter: @kirvine_water

7th Water Research Horizon Conference, Dessau 28th June 2016

Dedication: Brian Moss, 1943-2016

…at the global political level

Veganstreat.org,

Reaching the MDG Sanitation Target

Progress on sanitation and drinking water – 2015 update and MDG assessment. UNICEF and WHO (2015) http://www.wssinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/resources/JMP-Update-report-2015_English.pdf

…at issue level

vv

www.bbc.co.uk/news

www.talkvietnam.org

Sakumono Ramsar site Accra

vv

Critical

Good

Heritage Sites and conservation outlook in threatened biodiversity biodiversity hotspots

…at the corporate level

www.sustainableplant.com

…at the corporate level(1) http://www.groupe-castel.com/en/environment

Website statement of the French CastelGroup who control the BGI brewery,

Kolbolcha, Ethiopia.

“Our commitment to minimising the negative environmental and social impact of our activities is not just a passing fad. It

is a logical extension of the quality commitments we first drew up in the 1990s,

now consolidated by our new Environmental Management System. At its core lies a clear economic logic: the Castel

Group’s future success will be wholly dependent on achieving a close synergy

with our «ecosystem»…” (1)

Untreated BGI outfall, 2013

Nurient Enrichment: A Global Problem here to stay?

What we get is not what we want

Diaz and Selman 2010

Africa

• Only 20 eutrophic documented

• Undoubtedly many more, but lack of water quality data prevents assessment

Global Enrichment of Coastal Zones

This year's dead zone will likely be nearly a third larger than normalwww.motherjones.com/environment/2016/06/gulf-mexico-braces-monsterous-dead-zone

Mississippi Delta USA

2007

Danubs, 2005

RBDMP Update 2015

• Projected declines in nutrient emmissions.

• Reductions anticipated from EU Detergent Regulation

Results of Joint Danube Survey 2 (2007) www.icpdr.org

High

Good

Moderate

Poor

Bad

EQR=1

EQR=0

Status Deviation

No/minimal

Slight

Moderate

EQR= Observed value

Reference value

Classboundary

High/good status

Good/Moderate status

Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC): “Water quality” without ecological function

Ecological Status determined by the biology, supported by chemistry and hydromorphology

www.ecofactireland.com

Example 1: Freshwater Pearl Mussel (Maragitifera maragritifera). Protected under EU Habitats Directive

• High oxygen, minimal silt, low nutrients• Intermediate fish host

Longevity > 100 years

• Irish EPA High status target SRP : < 25 μg/l average

• Scadanavian total phosphorus < 5-15 μg/l average

Locval Impacts, big effect. Oily Catchment Donegal,

2011

Lowland calcareous lake with recent and historical impact

Hobbs,W, Irvine, K. and Donohue, I. (2005) Using sediments to assess the resistance of a calcareous lake to

diffuse nutrient loading. Arch für Hydro, 164: 109-125

Example 2: Lough Carra SAC, Western Ireland

Designated WFD Status: High Ecological Quality

Humans

Cattle

>20 ha<20 ha

Donohue et al (2010) Rapid ecosystem recovery from diffuse pollution after the Great Irish Famine

Ecological Applications. 20: 1733–1743

".. there is evidence that the ecology of the lake and the underlying water quality in the lake is deteriorating."

High Status: No or minimal impact compared withreference, using

intercalibrated methods

Projected increases

Dairy: milk prod.+50%Beef: output value +20%Pig production +35%

“plans and programmes which contribute to European and world economic recovery are of relevance to Food Harvest 2020”

Food Harvest 2020. Environmental Analysis. Farelly & Co, 2014). Report to DAFM

Relationship between cattle density and lake TP

I ha-1 3 ha-1

Irvine et al. (2000). The use of empirical relationships and nutrient export coefficients for

predicting phosphorus concentrations in Irish lakes. Int. Verh. Ver. Limnol., 27: 1127-1131.

(35 µg TP l-1 )

(10 µg TP l-1 )

Risk Factors

Moving to the zone of medocrity

Moving to the zone of medocrity

Schoumans et al. 2015. Phosphorus management in Europe in a changing world, Ambio, 44: (Supl 2) 180-192

Consumption of phosphate fertilizers in teragram P2O5

(1 Tg = 1012 g = 1 million ton) during the period 1960–2012

But, unevendistribution of use

Feeding the world, a dilemma for water quality

Mean, minimum (min), and maximum (max) values of annual chemical P fertilizer use per ha of agricultural land (in kg P2O5 per ha per year) for 1961–2012 and 2008–2012 (based on FAOSTAT 2014)

Migina Catchment, Rwanda

(move cursor over object to activate video control)

Why Aquatic Conservation forLemmings? Video shown

Mental Models

Source: World Development Report 2015

Mental Models –

the pull of collective patterns

Source: World Development Report 2015

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

MOVING BEYOND THE

LEMMING MINDSET

http://www.global-integration.com/blog/breaking-down-silos/

Step 1: Get out of the silo

Irvine et al. (2015) Educating for Action: Aligning Skills with Policies for Sustainable Development in the Danube River Basin. Science of the Total Environment (in press)

Basin managers as sustainability change agents

Example Danube:Harmonizing economic, educational, environmental and social strategies

www.panda.org

Brian Moss

“The most dangerous worldview is the world view of those who have not viewed the world”

“Change will have to come from the bottom-up, from the people, since the top-down approach will continue to fail us. In this scientists have a duty to move from their concentration on small problems and their personal advancement, to a wider view and a role in education and leadership, if we are to have a reasonably comfortable future”.

Aldo Leopold:

@AcademicsSay

Brexit, Understanding and the global future

What to Conclude?

From lament to meaningful monitoring

• Cross sectoral buy in

• Accessible and trusted information

• Citizen engagement

Declare with commitment

• Moving from metrics to understanding

• Accountability

• Communication

Ignore at our peril

• Capacity development

• Political engagement

• Broader education

Avoiding therisks of a fixedparadigm

Civil Society

Enabling Environment

Cross-sectoral Knowledge & Capacity Development

Requires concerted efforts at multiple levels

KCD is aimed at solving problems and improving performance.

If problems and challenges change, so does the required capacity.

Policy

Strategy

Priorities

Regulatory Framework

Organisational

Procedures

Routines

Knowledge Management

Incentive Systems

IndividualKnowledge

Experience

Skills

Attitudes

Ecological literacy

Resilience

Courtesy of Uta Wehn, 2014

Falkenmark (2004) Two particular imperatives to pay much more attention to in view of the conflicts of water-dependent interests: …food security….[and]…ecological security.

'Towards integrated catchment management: opening the paradigm locks between hydrology, ecology and policy-making', International Journal of Water Resources Development, 20:3, 275 -281

Safeguarding Global Ecosystem Health

?